


Royalties

by heget



Series: Band of the Red Hand [20]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Post-War Valinor, Second Age, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Worldbuilding, author apologizes to her creations via happy ever afters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heget/pseuds/heget
Summary: A glimpse into a new life in Valinor of the Second Age for one of Finrod's companions.  The pin-maker's son does not expect the new windfall before him.The happy sequel to"Pins".
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Band of the Red Hand [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/319556
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

Tacholdir brought the slip of embossed parchment over to his lover in shaking hands, his face caught between the warring emotions of elation and disbelief. “Taltyo, read this for me.”

“It is the publisher’s notice about the book’s profits, isn’t it? I already checked in with the store when I went to buy bread. The last copy sold yesterday, and the scribes are panicking about the demand.”

“I didn’t think that anyone would care,” Tacholdir whispered, “it’s just a word list of Taliska, everything I knew and some input from the prince. And a few short anecdotes. Not even entertaining ones, just which mortal I heard the particular word from, or one of the visitors to the city. The longest story is about that one Bëorian lass’s horrible handwriting. Prince Finrod is writing a more comprehensive treatise, and he has the authority and name. I thought only my friends would buy it as a support gesture. There’s no analysis. Tal,” his fiancee wailed, ”they write that the  _ Lambeñgolmor _ had purchased a copy and wish to commission a special edition. Rúmil himself has read and praised it. That cannot be so! Tal, what am I to do?”

Taltyo valiantly tried to control his mouth before he laughed in his fiancee’s face. “Hand me the missive, Tacholdir. I will read it myself and tell you that I see the same words that you do.”

“The lore-masters. Those lore-masters, Taltyo. You don’t know them- to care about a first-time author’s book from a nobody.”

“You are a hero and companion of the eldest son of the Noldor King. You are not nobody, Tacholdir,” Taltyo soothed.

His fiancee, pacing now around the room, ignored him. “I can’t believe it! …those judgmental, prescriptivist nobles! That pack of snobs!”

“Ah yes,” Taltyo said, “I heard about this. These were the same lore-masters that demanded that there was only their way to speak a language. Purer because princes spoke it. Better because it was older, and then mocked the shepherds because of their Quendya, which if ever one heard the King’s Mother speak, her words are shaped like the poor farmers and shepherds and not the wealthy of Valmar or Tirion. You doubt because you think they would discount you as merely Tancildo the pin-maker’s son, someone of no importance. Your readers do not care. They want to know about the Second-born. You write truth, and even your tiny stories, the ones you think so boring about the mortal commoners, they are rare gems. Your audience has never met these People of Bëor. The man who describes his sheep with that funny word because its wool was so coarse? My cousins see themselves in this Second-born whom they shall never encounter. The girl who tells you the name of all the fruits that they grew. Their words for animals and dance? Words for tools I do not recognize. Your audience hungers for these, Tachildor. And have you not noticed how popular the ballads and tales of the mortal heroes are?”

“But those are the great deeds,” Tachildor pressed. “This is but a small glossary of no great scholarship.”

“Only to you, my foolish love. Your humility is endearing, but cease your pacing. Now let us see the sum you have earned us….Tachildor. Tachildor? Is there a mistake on the brushstroke here?”

His fiancee squealed. “See!  _ See! _ ”

“Tachildor, what are we to do with all that money?”

“And they want a second order!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Lambeñgolmor_ \- "Loremasters of Tongue" a school of lore-masters founded by Fëanor who attempt to "purify" and control the usage of Quenya. The term could expand to include all linguists and those lore-masters working with language like Rúmil, but was initially the political party dedicated to linguistic prescriptivism with all the classism that entails.
> 
> Quendya is the Vanyar as opposed to Noldor or Telerin dialect of Quenya.
> 
> Taliska is the native language of the People of Bëor.  
> 


	2. Chapter 2

“More have signed up for lessons in basic Taliska. Taltyo, I don’t understand. I thought my writing was clear, and it’s not as if they need coaching in the comprehension of new word meanings like the mortals did. Which, may Eru forgive me, I lost my temper with the sons and daughters of Bëor’s people in those early days, to my shame, because I did not comprehend that the mortals could not learn the tongues of others as we do, and thought them slow and stupid instead of the truth, that they were far more clever than I would have been.”

Tacholdir’s fiancee once more refrained from rolling his eyes in irritation at his fiancee’s proclivity for belittling himself and undervaluing his talent and accomplishments. And to think everyone in his gymnasium thought him the most impatient and unrestrained of his fellows. “More of my cousins? Or the lore-masters’ apprentices?”

Tacholdir gave Taltyo the list of signatures.

Inspecting the long list of names, and recognizing most of the Vanyar and none too few of the Noldor, by their patronymics if nothing else, Taltyo chuckled. “I understand what is occurring, my love. Describe the age and marital status of all your prospective new students, if you will.”

“Marital status? What does that have to do with aught?” Tacholdir sputtered.

His fiancee gave him a dry look.

“They know I am engaged to you! And our fortunes are not _that_ great, or my fame. And I know I am not comely.”

At that last statement, Taltyo wrapped his fiancee in an embrace and kissed him. Tachildor sighed against Taltyo’s lips, dropping the paper from his hand and pressing against his fiancee’s chest, lifting his feet to stand on his toes because of the height difference between them. The tension ebbed. “I have been a great nervous fool these last few months,” Tacholdir whispered, curling against Taltyo’s chest as the other man rested his chin atop his head.”Usually I am not this way. Sensible and steady. Ask my superiors and they would commend me such.” 

“We are settling into our new lives,” Taltyo said. “Adjustments happen. You were my rock in the Gardens. Let me be your rock now.”

Tachildor smiled and leaned back up to place a series of seemingly chaste but playful kisses on Taltyo’s lips. “You can sit in during the lessons if you want, to warn off any would-be flirts. But wear your most unflattering shirt, lest they turn their attention to you. I won’t even ask you to participate in the pronunciation drills.”

“You Noldor and your inventing new sounds.”

“Those are all the mortals to blame. And the dwarves.”

“Watch out for Melimo. He is notorious for becoming infatuated with anyone with a halfway pleasant voice. If not you, than one of your soon-to-be students. And his poetry is atrocious. Both what he sends while attempting to court and afterwards while lamenting his broken heart.”

“Personal experience?” Tachildor teased.

“If he shows up for lessons, charge him triple.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tacholdir and Taltyo met in the Gardens of Estë](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4723037/chapters/40810403#workskin) \- Taltyo wasn't reborn, but like Faron he did get grievously injured during the War of Wrath and needed recuperating.  
> At the beginning, Tacholdir is referring to how Finrod and other elves could quickly learn languages via the quasi-mind reading of _oswarë_.
> 
> Again, rip 'Edain craze among the Valinorean youth headcanon' from my cold, dead hands.


	3. Chapter 3

Taltyo hears the jokes about 'how the Noldor are' during chatter at his gym. The stereotypes are well-established, but deeper than the jokes about quarrelsomeness and reneging out of boredom, the adolescent dissatisfied greed of spoiled children, is the deeper evaluation: their preoccupation with material things and hoarding of knowledge for the sake of hoarding and that the possessiveness of objects and creation is for status among their peers. The jokes and stereotypes are repeated above his head as Taltyo lifts the hand weights and stretches muscles. Taltyo tries to focus on the exercises to limber his healed wounds, banishing the phantom pain of his pulverized hip. Instead of the false pain he must focus on the sense of irritation that their words give him. The others want him, as their compatriot engaged to a Noldo, to remark on the characterization and to deny and defend his fiancée.

Taltyo can’t.

His fiancée, Tacholdir, works on his book when Taltyo returns from the gym, showing him the pages upon pages of foreign words that the Noldor man learned during his years in Beleriand, each word counted like a bead in an abacus, like a mountain of seeds in a granary that Tacholdir is methodically sorting and laying out in tidy rows. His fiancée’s face glows with pride at this aseptic hoard of knowledge. As if the words are shiny pebbles, each as much a simple object as another, no difference in weight between love, yellow, ox-yoke, threshing, mother, and glittering. Pebbles meant to be hemmed and hawed over and claimed. And in the claiming, there is gained something that ties the words to Tacholdir and he to them.

Tacholdir desires jewels and expensive clothes. Taltyo does not mind, even does his best to support Tacholdir’s spending and quell the second guessing. Taltyo’s gym friends do not understand why he encourages the frivolity. And Tacholdir’s desire for this fancy, pricey garments and jewelry to wear is precisely for the reason that the cruller jokes mock. Tacholdir wants rich velvets and sparkling jewels _because_ they are desired by other people, _because_ they are the outward signifiers of status and wealth among the Noldor. Aesthetic appreciation factors into Tacholdir’s choices, but Taltyo has learned his lover and knows that what drives Tacholdir to buy these objects is because Tacholdir once could not. If for beauty and comfort alone, Tacholdir would not chose what he now wears. The expensive robe validates his fiancée, because as a child and young man, Tacholdir’s family could not buy those things. The envy aches within Tacholdir the same way that Taltyo’s healed wounds ache.

Taltyo places a hand over the scar on his lower abdomen, watching his fiancée glow with excitement over the new coat, preening in the mirror as he brags that he was recognized by name in the tailor’s shop for his new book. Yes, those material desires make Tacholdir happy. But Tacholdir’s happiness gives Taltyo happiness. And it is not _despite_ of those so very Noldor traits that Taltyo loves his fiancée, who is so incredibly patient, so compassionate in his cleverness, so deliberate and sweet. Who demands enough blankets and pillows on his bed as to make Taltyo feel like he is suffocating in a giant vat of butter when the larger man makes the mistake of falling asleep on the bed - because Tacholdir cannot suffer the hint of a hard surface after the cold naked stones of that dungeon. The mattress that will swallow him alive is the sacrifice Taltyo is making despite his fiancée’s other good qualities. The other quintessential Noldor character flaws are so engrained in his Tacholdir that Taltyo cannot separate them out. Or desire to.


End file.
